Agenda item

Report ES19026

Members considered the performance of JB Riney from the start of their Highway Maintenance contracts with the Council on 1^st July 2018. Highway Engineering Consultancy Services were included in the contract from November 2018. The Contract includes a Performance Management Framework (PMF) with related Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and associated Low Service Damages (LSD). The Contract allowed for a three month mobilisation period where LSDs would not be chargeable. 

With approval in December 2016 of £11.8m capital funding for investment in planned highway maintenance, five phases of projects were approved with  many completed by the previous contractor, FM Conway; however, as the new contract includes an improved five year warranty for all carriageway resurfacing schemes, a number were delayed for the new contract. 

The Council also received a £1.117m Department for Transport grant in October 2018 for highway resurfacing works. As the grant needed to be spent by 31^st March 2019, this budget funded previously approved carriageway schemes with remaining capital funding rolled forward to 2019/20. 

JB Riney has continued to make good progress on these improvement projects. Although carriageway works were suspended for two months by poor winter weather, remaining projects from phase five of the programme are due to be completed this summer. Footway schemes have also progressed, with a mixture of major and minor planned works.

On completion of the five phases, agreement will be sought for any additional schemes that can be funded from the remaining capital budget. JB Riney has also completed a number of traffic schemes as part of the annual LIP programme.

On highway reactive maintenance tasks and emergency highway repairs, JB Riney is required to complete 90% of all jobs within specified timescales. Performance against required job durations was reported as:

As the required KPI’s had not been achieved, LSDs of £4,800 would be chargeable. 

For Street Lighting Maintenance, KPIs require 95% of tasks to be completed within 4 working days and 100% within 8 working days. Performance against required job durations was reported as:

As the required KPI’s had not been achieved in this area, LSDs of £30,150 would be chargeable. 

For Winter Service, all precautionary gritting is required to be completed with 2.5 hours, which had been achieved in all cases. For Highway Engineering Consultancy Services, the arrangement is working well from early indications, with a number of traffic schemes being commissioned on a ‘design and build’ basis. Highway Drainage Cleaning isalso included in the contract from 1^st April 2019 and performance would be reported to a future meeting.

JB Riney representatives attended for the item. Concerning arisings from JB Riney’s highway maintenance in the borough, almost 100% of waste is recycled.

Dangerous pot holes are identified through highway safety inspections and jobs can also be raised from Fix My Street (FMS) enquiries and other reports from Councillors or Members of the Public. Jobs have to be completed based on the defect and risk of causing an accident, usually 2 hours for an emergency, 10 working days for urgent repairs and 35 days for non-urgent works. All works are guaranteed for 2 years. Utility damage (e.g. from utility vehicles) presents a challenge and JB Riney report any concern on this to the highways client team. 

For highway reactive maintenance tasks and emergency repairs, it was noted that between October 2018 and January 2019, there was only one month (November 2018) where JB Riney achieved their KPI target of completing 90% of all jobs within specified timescales. There was also concern that progress had declined for both reactive maintenance tasks/emergency highway repairs and street lighting maintenance, although performance times for the latter had started to improve. It was felt JB Riney should exceed and not just meet their target and it was hoped operations will be sufficiently robust in bad winter weather (not experienced during the previous winter). The months of poor completion times for street lighting maintenance were also highlighted e.g. November 2018 at 52% for works completed in 4 days. 

JB Riney acknowledged that performance had not been to the required standard. However, significant investment had been made in a software platform not previously in place for highways. A satellite depot has also been established for a quicker response and new incentivisations provided for workforce teams. The trend is now upwards and JB Riney hoped to perform to target when Members next consider their performance. 

JB Riney also indicated that holidays and poor weather contributed to January’s performance on reactive and emergency highway repairs (66% of works completed within 10 and 35 days). The Christmas shut down and transitioning to bring in improved resource also contributed. Additionally, JB Riney had not taken the best approach to deliver minor and major highway works as one under the contract. However, a level of commitment was being demonstrated and for street light maintenance, a lack of resources and slowness to react contributed to previous poor completion times.

This was also the first year of the contract and L B Bromley’s highway asset was new to JB Riney. Moreover, the company had no previous experience of FMS and poor performance times can be attributed more to that part of working rather than executing works. JB Riney was confident though going forward and is also looking to develop apprenticeships.

For future reporting, it was suggested that completion times on reactive and emergency highway repairs are categorised by emergency repairs, urgent repairs, and non-urgent works. Where the contractor performs outside of required completion times and a private vehicle is damaged as a result, the contractor rather than the Council is liable in the event of a claim.  

The Chairman suggested that JB Riney’s performance is considered again in a further six months with JB Riney representatives in attendance. This was agreed.

RESOLVED that:

(1)  the content of Report ES19026 be noted, particularly the on-going

work to ensure compliance with the Contract; and

(2)  the performance of JB Riney be considered in a further six months with JB Riney representatives invited back to the Committee at that point.